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PICTURES: MARK SHEARMAN
THE CHAMPIONSHIP director of London 2017 believes next year’s IAAF and IPC Championships will reboot a sport that has been hit with doping and corruption in recent years. As he oversees preparations for the two global events, Niels de Vos is confident they will provide the tonic that athletics needs after a difficult 2015-16 spell that saw Russia banned from international athletics and Lamine Diack’s legacy as IAAF president tarnished by revelations of dodgy dealings.
“With all the trials and tribulations the IAAF have been through, it’s nice for Seb Coe and his team to know that they don’t need to worry about the next two IAAF World Championships – outdoors in London and indoors in Birmingham in 2018 – because they are in absolutely safe hands,” says De Vos. “So London 2017 is not just critical to London and British Athletics any more but it’s critical to the relaunch of the whole sport globally and the world audience. So I would be surprised if they’re not thinking ‘thank goodness it’s in London’,” he adds.
De Vos knows London 2017 won’t be a success without lots of hard work and smart planning, though, and he appreciates there are high expectations for it to almost match the London Olympics as an athletics spectacle. “It’s great to be staging the events but also quite scary,” he says. “Every day in Rio at least 20 people came up to me and said ‘we can’t wait to be back in London’, which is brilliant and reassuring but lots of pressure.”
As AW has explained over the past few pages, organising the global championships and a Diamond League in July and August next year is a mammoth job. “Even the athletics cognoscenti probably don’t realise what a logistical exercise it is to take a team the scale of ours or the US to a major championship,” he says, referring to the recent team leaders’ visit to London that saw delegates discussing hotel rooms and visas ahead of next summer.
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